The 2011 The Thing wasn’t so much a remake as it was a prequel to the remake, telling the story from the Norwegian scientists’ camp.
The 1982 John Carpenter remake opened with the last two remaining Norwegian scientists chasing “The Thing” until it reaches the Americans’ camp. But they’re misunderstood by the Americans. When trying to shoot at The Thing, which has taken the shape of a sled dog, the Americans instead return fire and kill them. Then the Americans explore the Norwegian camp and try to figure out what horrors killed everyone there, while slowly discovering why they were shooting at a dog in the first place.
The 2011 film shows what happened to the Norwegians before the 1982 remake. You’re correct, it wasn’t as great of a film (hard to compete with John Carpenter), but it wasn’t exactly a remake.
The worst thing about the 2011 prequel is they had filmed the whole movie with practical effects, like the Carpenter movie, which is one of my favorites of all time. If you’ve seen it, you may remember very little of these and a lot of cgi.
The studio or production company or whatever didn’t like the practical effects and we got cgi Thing instead. I’d love to see the original effects, and I feel so bad for the people who worked so hard on it just to get scrubbed from the final cut.
The 2011 The Thing wasn’t so much a remake as it was a prequel to the remake, telling the story from the Norwegian scientists’ camp.
The 1982 John Carpenter remake opened with the last two remaining Norwegian scientists chasing “The Thing” until it reaches the Americans’ camp. But they’re misunderstood by the Americans. When trying to shoot at The Thing, which has taken the shape of a sled dog, the Americans instead return fire and kill them. Then the Americans explore the Norwegian camp and try to figure out what horrors killed everyone there, while slowly discovering why they were shooting at a dog in the first place.
The 2011 film shows what happened to the Norwegians before the 1982 remake. You’re correct, it wasn’t as great of a film (hard to compete with John Carpenter), but it wasn’t exactly a remake.
The worst thing about the 2011 prequel is they had filmed the whole movie with practical effects, like the Carpenter movie, which is one of my favorites of all time. If you’ve seen it, you may remember very little of these and a lot of cgi.
The studio or production company or whatever didn’t like the practical effects and we got cgi Thing instead. I’d love to see the original effects, and I feel so bad for the people who worked so hard on it just to get scrubbed from the final cut.
It was a weird combination of remake and prequel. It hit all the same story points and barely added anything new apart from Tetris aliens.